The beginning of this blog will be dedicated to the issue I have been having for the last 2 years, with focus on the last year. so skip ahead to the paragraph beginning "As a navy wife, I have learned to be my own advocate." if you get bored :)and as always, i apologize in advance for the typos (i corrected some then got bored HA!) ..as well as the poor punctuation etc..This is a blog..imperfect..not to be handed in and graded..so im being a lazy pants ;P
Here is the cut down version, but with as much important detail as possible. I've been trying to complete nursing school for what i consider to be a very long time once you figure pre-requisites and such. The first school i went to in FL not so great.. but i do believe it could have been great...ive seen that school work out for others. i believe had we had a better teacher it would've been a better experience! the second school was in SC and this is really where the story begins...I will mention no names here. I am a go getter. i have so many classes under my belt i lost track of how many credit hours i have. its a bit depressing actually lol!! and trying to apply them to a degree.
Anyhow.. I did a ton of research on schools in the area we would be moving to and of course i was extremely limited! (pretty much one school ha!) so i took the chance and went for it. before we moved i drove 3 hours just to take a test to get into this school, then 3 hours home again. mind you, my kids were just babies then. this was so important to me though. So, fast forward to our moving to SC. school starts and i fill out all my paper work and im ready to go. i lasted about a week.. maybe a day or so more before i found myself withdrawing yet AGAIN! it was one of the heart breaking days of my life i dont think ill forget. i felt like such a failure. well, turns out i did not gt an important updated email about my clinical site. these days technology is the number one way to communicate with people. previously, my teacher told me my clinical site would be at place "A" most likely.. i never heard an update so i figured ok.. im good to go. well, the following day or so im asked why i was not at clinical. she had sent out an email blah blah blah. well, a day or so later i had to withdraw because i missed that clinical day. it SUCKED! i went to class like any normal day, then i was pulled out and told the bad news. i told them i never received an email and maybe they should check their old emails they sent because this also happened where they emailed out a hand out for class that i also never had gotten.
so anyways, i was told if i withdrew that day, id be within the allotted add/drop time and not owe the school any money. through my tears and pretty much begging for another chance, i signed the paper to withdraw. the next day or maybe even that day, i was online busting my ass looking for other nursing schools. we found out we would be moving to California so i looked up schools,made phone calls, and had a huge folder full of info for schools. i applied to about 3 local colleges, sent transcripts etc.. then found gurnick academy for LPN. not my first choice but because we would only be in CA for 2 years, it may be my only option that would pretty much guarantee id be done in time. so i took that and ran with it and now im graduated YAY!
ok, back to the story.. so last year i get a letter saying some debt has gone to collections. long story short, the school in SC charged me for a class i never attended. apparently they had sent notices to me but unfortunately, it was being sent to an old address in FL despite me updating it in the office. you have to update your address in the nurses office and the front office, which i did after i found out something was never sent to me by mail.. stupid. anyways... so by the time the bill got to me, i was long gone in California. also, come to find out, my address is still listed in their system as my FL address. when will they learn? i was considered a resident.. you'd of thought something would have gone off in their minds looking at my FL address but yet being a SC resident.. which you had to have in order to get priority to go to their school.
So, i tried calling, emailing, leaving voice messages. so difficult to get a hold of these people. no one gets back to you, and instead of calling you back, they send emails. frustrating when youre trying to deal with something so serious. so here i am today, still fighting this bill. not because we can not pay it, but because i do not owe it. mark has told me "lets just pay the damn thing"...but no. i refuse. enough money is taken out of our hands that we shouldn't have to pay why give in to another business. So, most of you know im a little investigator. i am done with school now so i had a lot of time to look into this matter even more.t urns out i learned several things. finally got a hold of my withdrawal agreement, the syllabus from the year i attend that college, a transcript sent to me from the college last year, a screen shot of a transcript from the colleges website, and several other bits of info like a very important detail... my pharmacology class that im told i have to pay for, DID NOT start until MARCH. i withdrew in JANUARY. i was being charged for this class, however, not the nursing class i had attended for for the few days? hmm. interesting. so despite me going back and forth with the dean, and telling her "i sat down with you and my teacher and was told id have no payment...this would not show up as a withdrawn class on my transcript, it would be as if i never existed at the school" i was told her hands were tied. this was before i got all my paper work together. i sent her an email, called the collecting agency, and their looking into it now :)
As a navy wife, I have learned to be my own advocate. any woman really, but heres why military. We hold so many titles, we are dragged around moving here and there, having to uproot ourselves and our kids, we learn to adjust, sacrifice, have plans A,B,C down to Z... we have to network and learn to play well with others, step out of our comfort zone.. we are really a special breed of people. unless you lived the life, you just really dont know. its nice to know that people try to understand, but you've got to really experience it and several years of it to fully understand. I started this navy life when i was 19 years old and have been going to school since. ive been to so many schools, had to fight to get classes approved, found ways to pay for school because either we made too much money or not enough..etc.. many women have this issue it seems. now, were in a good place. my husbands a chief and im about finished with a few A.A. degrees and my LPN certification...which is GREAT! its a step closer to what ive worked hard for.
IDK how to put it any better other than when shit hits the fan, we become really good advocates for ourselves and our families. we get things done! after years of just having to deal with our husbands changes in work schedules, deployments, etc... we don't have a choice. at first, it can be a bit uncomfortable, for some of us its out of our comfort zone.. but eventually we get there! the successful ones do. this doesn't mean we don't break down now and then... were human, not machines.. so this happens. but we also know how to pick ourselves back up again.
my schooling has been an uphill battle and i refuse to just settle because someone told me this is how it is going to be.
The other thing we learn to be is accepting. this also comes with practice and reassurance. ive seen many many people pass me in my schooling and think "why not me? when will it be my turn? i deserve that too!" not jealousy, but envious, because dammit, i deserve it. friends and classmates... this happens. so happy for them, but i want a piece of the time also. my grammy as ive said in other posts... told me a very important saying that i remind myself of quite a bit. "let go and let god" once you do things fall into place. this has been my motto ever since moving to California. my grammy is such a blessing to me because she reminds me, by these words, that god has a plan for me and it will come when it comes. a long as i help myself, god will help me. it may take me 10 years to get where i want to be, and 3 years for another person to attain that same position, doesn't make either of us better... just means it wasn't what was in my plan for that time. looking back now i can see why nursing didn't work the first time. the second time i tried, that was a blessing because i would've had to stay behind to finish while mark came to CA or left yet another program and tried to transfer and blah blah blah its giving em a headache just thinking about it!!
so.. be your own advocate, have a voice! be accepting of what comes... another motto i have is that i give myself one day to be pissed about something that's it. then i have to be logical and try to find a solution. some days are better than others. practice practice practice!
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